It's one of sport's oddest presentation ceremonies. After the final putt is sunk at this year's Masters, the winning golfer will shake hands with his caddy and engage in an obligatory emotional hug with his trophy wife and kids before descending into a dingy basement that resembles what might happen if David Lynch moved into your gran's house.

This is the "historic" Butler Cabin ritual (now in its 45th year) in which the previous year's winner gives the new champion his prize - an ill-fitting blazer in emerald green. There to oversee this strange induction will be Billy Payne, the Augusta National Golf Club chairman, and CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, on hand to ask the fist-bitingly earnest questions ("Does this seem almost a dream for you right now?").

This is all carried out against a backdrop that could be described as Masonic nursing home chic. The "cabin" (actually a two-storey house built in 1964, one of 10 on-site houses used by members and guests) has scatterings of bright flowers, a stone-clad fireplace and mahogany chairs laid out as if we had just interrupted a seance. But it's not only the soft furnishings that give a sinister edge. The cave-like setting, corporate video production values and deference to the chairman hint that in this little patch of America, the Augusta National Club is in charge. Throw in the sight of last year's winner reduced to the role of mute wardrobe assistant, and the fear on the new winner's face as he wonders if he'll be given a green jacket, or a blindfold and chloroform, and it makes for compelling television.

Recent Cabin highlights have included the chairman asking Bernhard Langer how to pronounce his name, the barely concealed friction during the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson handovers of 2005 and 2006, and 2007 champion Zach Johnson's remark about how the recent birth of his child gave him "new-found appreciation for mothers and women" - a suitably patronising remark given Augusta's all-male members policy.

For all its hokeyness, maybe it's just a quaint and harmless quirk that makes Augusta what it is. Then again, in 1995, CBS commentator Gary McCord was banned from the tournament for joking that the lumpy hills might be covering up where the bodies are buried. Perhaps he was on to something.